


our long love’s day

by winterkill



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Don't think about it too hard, F/M, Getting Back Together, Happily ever after on Tarth!, I made up a weird folk festival, Jaime/Brienne Appreciation Week 2019, Marriage Proposal, More Selywin Tarth being amazing, My first book!canon compliant fic, Post - A Dance With Dragons, Unresolved Romantic Tension, although it's pretty vague
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-11-22 12:48:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20874458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterkill/pseuds/winterkill
Summary: "Brienne rejected me, more than once."Lord Selwyn looks at the sun, high above Evenfall's keep, blinding in its midday glory. The sun Jaime thought he'd never live to see again."Ask her again. Ask her here. You’ve all the daylight you need, especially on this day."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I managed it again! This is for Day 3, the longest day
> 
> This is in two parts because I wasn't able to finish it, and it grew much longer than intended. The second part will be up tomorrow. The title is a line from the poem "To His Coy Mistress" by Andrew Marvell. This is another unbeta-ed fic written on public transportation, so all mistakes are my own.
> 
> This is also, hilariously, my first even remotely book canon compliant fic. I did borrow some show stuff when it suited me.
> 
> Enjoy Jaime reflecting on the transience of human life and the unstoppable passage of time.

It's dawn on the longest day of the year when a fisherman's skiff takes them across Shipbreaker Bay to Tarth.

The morning is cool, wind whipping off the water, cutting through Jaime's worn woolen cloak. The cloak reminds him of his own state--threadbare and gray. It was _ more_, once, not the gold and crimson of his house, but a sturdy gray that kept winter out.

It was a cloak fit for the North, fit for the Long Night. 

Winter releases its grip on the land slowly, it's icy fingers losing their battle with the lengthening sun. Dawn rises over Tarth, illuminates the trees and rocky outcroppings with a gauzy halo of light. 

_ This island was made for summer_. Jaime knows it before they even dock, even as the sharp sea breeze bites into his skin. Brienne, next to him, looks ahead, as she always does. That's his image of Brienne, calmly gazing forward, doing what needs to be done. Unlike him, who looks backward, lets the past shackle his wrists and ghosts nip at his heels.

Podrick sits at the prow of the boat; he must enjoy a face full of salty spray as they cut through the waves.

"I'm cold," he tells Brienne--she's surely used to his whinging by now. He certainly made enough noise about the cold when they were at Winterfell, balls-deep in wights and snow. The wights could be killed; Valyrian steel and dragonglass were useless against winter.

"It's summer," she answers, "the longest day of the year, even."

"It sure doesn't fucking feel like it on this boat."

Brienne moves a bit closer to him on the bench, angles herself to guard him from the wind. She's a hundred tiny gestures like this--things she does for him that he's not even sure she's aware of. They've been in one another's company for so long that the comforts traded between them are instinct.

"You make a lovely shield, ser," Jaime tells her when he's wrapped the extra fabric of her cloak around him. He'd given her a sword, but that's not how he thinks of her. Brienne is a shield, a rampart, a palisade. Years ago, Catelyn Stark gave her a command to see him safely to King's Landing, and Brienne saw that oath kept and beyond. Through Catelyn's resurrected grief, through wights and cold and death and despair, Brienne saw him safely through.

Brienne doesn't respond.

"The skiff captain thinks we're lovers."

"Everyone thinks that," Brienne answers, stony in that way of hers when she doesn't want to broach a subject. "I'm the Kingslayer's Whore."

_ Kingslayer _doesn't matter any longer, not when there's so little left and so much work to do. Enough disaster purges broken oaths and transgressions from memory. Dragon fire does a pretty good job, too.

They weren't lovers, though--they'd fucked, but they weren't lovers. Jaime Lannister has _ never _ been anyone's lover. He'd been an outlet, an extension of someone else, a desperate bid for human contact in a place filled with death, but that's all. _ Lover _is a gentle word.

They've been silent for a moment when Brienne speaks.

"My father should greet us at the dock."

"The infamous Lord Selwyn Tarth, the Evenstar. How should I ask for your hand in marriage?"

"_Stop_."

Brienne's answering glare could disembowel a man who'd never learned how ticklish she is on the soft skin beneath her arm. A man who didn't know the contrasts of Brienne, the parts she hides.

The rub of it all, truly, is that Jaime _wants_ to wed her. He wanted to wed her before their hurried encounters in Winterfell, too frozen to enjoy anything other than confirming they hadn't frozen to death and were already damned by the gods to spend eternity in an icy hell.

He's probably the only man in the Seven Kingdoms who wants to stand before men _and_ gods and pledge fidelity until he draws his last breath. Wasn't that what women wanted? A man who would return to them, to never have to wonder who he'd fucked in a camp or some tavern? Who would happily, joyfully hold his sons _ and _ daughters? Who would be bound to her like the tide is to the moon?

Jaime understands why Cersei wouldn't wed him, no matter what Targaryen logic he wrapped the proposal in. _ We are above gods and men_, he'd told her. Only they definitely weren't because his sister is dead, killed in the fall of King's Landing, and Jaime is here, nestled against Brienne and staring at her ever-approaching island.

It's not his honor--Brienne and her ethical standards were his staunchest ally. It's part of her shield. How many people had she convinced to let him keep his head on his shoulders? Sansa Stark. The Dragon Queen. How many times had she stepped in front of him to keep him alive?

There's other possibilities for her rejections, but Brienne talking to the fisherman as they near the dock pulls Jaime from his thoughts.

Regardless, no matter how earnestly or teasingly Jaime asks, Brienne always says _ no_.

* * *

Some of Evenfall Hall stands; some of it is a shell, white stone marred by scorch marks. The main keep is intact, but many of the stained-glass windows have cracked panes. Most of the outlying buildings, made of hewn wood, have been razed.

Selwyn Tarth still stands, though, a literal mountain of a man.

Brienne embraces her father, clings to his broad shoulders like a child. From the way she's shaking, Jaime suspects that she's crying. Jaime maintains a fair distance, doesn't want to intrude, doesn't know what to do with the open affection between them. He hovers awkwardly, a potentially unwelcome addition.

Lord Selwyn holds Brienne's shoulders at arm's length, surveys his daughter. They haven't seen each other since before Jaime knew Brienne, since before she went to Storm's End to serve Renly. To Jaime, the events since then seem like they span an entire lifetime. Everything before Brienne feels like it happened to a different man. 

How does Brienne feel?

Lord Selwyn touches the scarring that mars Brienne's cheek. She's not facing Jaime, but he's certain she flinches at the contact. She always did when he touched her cheek.

"You're well," he hears Lord Selwyn say, "and home, and that's a fierce scar. I missed you, daughter."

"I missed you, too," Brienne replies.

* * *

Lord Selwyn's steward shows them to their rooms. They're not rooms fit for the Evenstar's heir, but they're the rooms that stand and are habitable. 

Jaime arrives first when they gather for their midday meal.

"You followed my daughter here," Lord Selwyn says to him.

Brienne introduced them, but her father had yet to speak directly to Jaime.

"I did," he answers. It's not something he can lie about; it's not something he _ wants _to lie about.

"She wrote of you," he continues, "but my daughter is reticent."

Jaime barks out a laugh, "Tell me about it."

"All her letters read like a battle report," Lord Selwyn laughs, too, "I know her, so I can read between her words, but not about _ you_. My daughter tries to hide her feelings about the Kingslayer."

"They're nothing exceptional," Jaime makes it sound like he doesn't care, that Brienne's spurning wounds nothing in him. "I can tell you what she'd say, if you'd like."

"Certainly."

"I'm irritating and glib, but she sees some buried honor in me. Your daughter has saved my life more times that I can count, even if I still had two hands." Jaime looks at the stump, covered by his sleeve--the golden, useless hand was lost in some snowfield near the Wall. He doesn’t miss it.

"You respect her?"

"The utmost," Jaime will never downplay his regard for Brienne, never understate her virtues. "She's the truest knight I've ever known."

Lord Selwyn's gives him a pointed look, "_You _ made her a knight--her letters told me that."

"My one good deed."

"The last time I was in Storm's End, I heard what they call Brienne."

He doesn't need to speak the epithet for Jaime to wince, "I never intended to dishonor her."

It was the ultimate irony, that Jaime's taint had bled onto her for something he hadn't even done. Well, he'd done it _ later_, but no one cared by then. It's his life's curse, to be lauded and reviled for all the wrong things. 

"Deeds often have unintended consequences."

Now, Jaime laughs outright, "Don't I fucking know it."

"They're not always negative, though," Lord Selwyn scratches at his chin through his beard.

"I'm... uncertain that I've been a boon for her."

"Brienne is dishonored in the eyes of some, but my daughter is a knight. Who else would give her that?"

"Anyone with fucking eyes," Jaime hates how bitter he sounds, worn down at every maligned comment either of them suffered.

"Brienne loves you."

It would thrill Jaime's heart if it was true, even a glimmer of hope would set him alight. He'd ask her every day to be his if he thought she would agree.

"She doesn't. She might pity me, or think me a friend, but it's not love."

"I know my daughter," Lord Selwyn answers, "She is my only living child. Brienne kept you from me, left nothing to intuit regarding you. She hides her heart to safeguard it."

"Brienne rejected me, more than once." _ And it hurt_. To have Brienne wall herself off was worse than the loss of his hand, worse than Cersei's scorn, worse than _ Kingslayer _ to his back. 

Lord Selwyn looks at the sun, high above Evenfall's keep, blinding in its midday glory. The sun Jaime thought he'd never live to see again.

"Ask her again. Ask her _ here_. You’ve all the daylight you need, especially on this day."

* * *

They attend some sort of solstice festival at Brienne's father's request. 

"You've been gone so long," Lord Selwyn tells her when she tries to dodge it. "You're my heir--go greet your people, show them you've returned to Tarth."

_ Damn, _ Jaime thinks, _ he used duty to get her to acquiesce. He's good. _

So, they go--and if Jaime was being honest, it’s a pretty shitty festival. Tarth is nothing but wilderness, the sea, and small fishing villages. Even the larger town surrounding Evenfall is not much of a town, and much of it is rubble. There’s dancing, maids in flower crowns, someone selling grilled fish on sticks and some local dessert Jaime can’t quite discern. He remembers a festival like this in Lannisport when he was a child; their mother took them, and Cersei had woven flowers in her golden hair. It's a good memory, and he's happy he can remember it as such.

Like many summer solstice festivals, it honors lovers. In this case, the Tarth legend of Galladon of Morne, who the Maiden fell so in love with that she gave him a shining sword, the Just Maid. Brienne whispers the legend to him while people mill about the town square.

“The Just Maid,” Jaime repeats, smirking, “That name might suit you more than Oathkeeper.”

Brienne touches the lion head pommel of the sword at her hip; she couldn’t even be convinced to leave it behind for an occasion like this. “You chose the name,” she replies.

“Better, maybe, in the end,” Jaime digs deeper the hole for his grave, “Ser Brienne is just, but she isn’t a maid.”

_ “And who’s fault is that?” _Brienne hisses into his ear. She’s blushing, a lovely color blossoming on her cheeks. She ducks her head to hide behind her hair. Teasing her is the only way left for Jaime to incite it.

“I’d say it was a combination effort, ser.”

Jaime’s feeling reckless, so he’s willing to take the teasing further, but the villagers start to notice Brienne and come to greet her, telling her stories of when she was a girl, beating their sons with a wooden sword. They welcome her, greet her--Brienne remembers names and faces, and Jaime can’t imagine any Lannister caring half as much about the smallfolk.

Podrick, who they lost sight of soon after docking, is surrounded by no less than three girls in flower crowns. He’s smiling at them, probably regaling them with some heroic deed involving a sword. 

“Look at your squire,” Jaime gestures with his stump.

“Pod was such a stumbletongue--”

“Those girls won’t be maidens on the morrow,” Jaime laughs.

“He’s too young,” Brienne furrows her brow.

“He’s sixteen and a man grown.”

“...He’s _ twelve_,” Brienne sounds emphatic, “and he’ll never be a day older.”

“The kitchen girls at Winterfell thought otherwise,” Jaime replies, “We had a conversation about ensuring he didn’t fill the keep with little Pods, which was horribly awkward, considering his leagues more experience.”

One of the girls kisses Podrick on the cheek and giggles. Brienne seems ready to go and drag him away by the ear.

Jaime touches her arm to halt her, “Let him be, Brienne. It’s summer.”

She raises her brows, “And at Winterfell?”

“...It was winter.”

“So it’s an activity for all seasons?”

_ It should be_.

“There was little else to occupy the time. We were frozen and thought each night would be our last.” Jaime isn’t sure when he moved from talking about Podrick to talking about _ them_.

Podrick is dancing with one of the girls, now; he spins her in an arc, and she laughs merrily.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's part two! This is the sappiest mush I've ever written, but I'm quite pleased with the results.

As the afternoon goes on, the townsfolk put on a play.

The stage and the props are crude--Galladon’s armor is ill-fitting and mismatched, and the girl playing the Maiden is too homely by far. It becomes a community effort, and barefoot children crowd the front of the stage, yelling comments until the players forget their lines and dissolve into fits of laughter.

It’s the worst play Jaime’s _ ever _ seen, but something about the simplicity of it summons the uncomfortable burning of tears behind his eyes. His father’s words-- _ tears are a mark of weakness in a man_, come, unbidden, into his mind. Tywin Lannister’s counsel is not something Jaime ever wants to dwell on, unless it’s to choose the exact opposite course.

That this scene is allowed to exist, anywhere, after so much death and destruction. That there are children, giggling and innocent, left anywhere in Westeros. People are living, laughing, working, _ fucking_. Babies will be born in the spring--Jaime just hopes none of them belong to Podrick.

That they're not all burned corpses in some Northern hell, blue-eyed wights that he cut down over and over, ceaselessly. That there's trees, and flowers, and _ terrible _ singing.

He wants to take Brienne's hand and swim with her in the sea. Maybe he can manage swimming with one hand--he's had no chance to try. Brienne kept him from drowning, once; she would surely do so again.

He doesn't want to waste another moment of sunlight on this long, long day.

Jaime lived longer than he ever intended, ever imagined. He thought to die young, in the glory of battle. A warrior's death. He thought to die with the loss of his hand, but Brienne had saved him. Then, he thought to die defending Winterfell, Brienne at his side at the end of the world. The gods, and her, had seen fit for his life to extend past that, too.

_ What’s the point, though, if I do nothing with the time I've been granted? _

Brienne, next to him, is watching the play, the tiniest smile on her face at the discord. She procured a tankard of _ something _ somewhere. It’s probably mead--Jaime remembers her drinking that at Winterfell, if she drank anything at all. How many times had he heard her request water when everyone around them was piss-drunk? 

He scrunches his eyes shut, can't decide if he wants Brienne to notice he's overcome. Stoic tears are good._ Manly _ tears. He's not going to fall to the ground in a fit of histrionics.

"Jaime?"

Of course she can tell; no one has ever paid attention to him like Brienne does, noticed cracks and faults and sought to soothe them, better them. _ But that must not be love. _ It feels like love, though, feels like what Jaime dreamed love felt like.

"It's nothing," he says, short and clipped.

"_Jaime_," she repeats, a little exasperated. She takes one hand off her tankard and because she's standing to his right, it means she grabs his bare wrist. "You're crying."

"_Am not_," he retorts. 

He's cried before her in the past--when they were held captive by the Bloody Mummers, and once at Winterfell, when Brienne was nearly overtaken by a group of wights. Jaime was so relieved that she still drew breath that he cried hot tears into her shirt. It was the first time they fucked.

"And now you're being petulant. What's wrong?"

He wipes at his face with his left hand, wishes he had fingers to hold her hand on his wrist, is glad that she doesn't mind that he doesn't.

"It's summer," he replies, "I never thought to see another."

* * *

Podrick finds Jaime, later; his clothes are askew and his dark hair is rumpled. He's holding ale.

"Pace yourself, Pod," Jaime cautions. He means both the drink and the women.

"It's a festival," Podrick replies. 

_ Is he this mouthy with Brienne? _

"Too much of a good thing becomes a bad thing." 

"Ser Jaime, are you going to stay on Tarth with Ser Brienne?"

Podrick looks at him; only has to tilt his head up the slightest. Maybe Podrick will be taller than Jaime, and Jaime can spend the rest of his days looking up to _ both _him and Brienne. The boy's growth marks the passage of time like rings on a tree, like the strands of gray interwoven with gold in Jaime’s hair. He cut it, recently, after Brienne nettled him about it on the road, but he’s not sure he likes it.

_ Nothing _ makes Jaime feel older than growing children. Growing children who feel bold enough to ask him hard life questions. 

"Are _ you _ going to stay on Tarth with Ser Brienne?"

_ That will show him; turn the question back on the brat. _

"I'll always stay with my lady,” Podrick gives Jaime a lopsided smile at what he used to call Brienne, "I'm her squire."

"What about when she knights you?"

"You knighted her, and she's still with you,” Podrick answers with such confidence that it makes Jaime envious.

_ That’s not the same at all_.

"I...thought I might stay, too," he answers, "if she'll have me." 

Podrick’s expression is too _ knowing_. Once, Jaime told him that he loved Brienne. He thought he was going to die, and he told Podrick to _ tell _ Brienne. Jaime was too afraid to ask if that actually happened.

"We're her family, aren't we? If not in name, then in deed."

* * *

“Why won’t you marry me?”

It’s later yet. Jaime asked Brienne to walk with him; they’re standing in some meadow, Evenfall’s keep behind them. Every inch of Tarth looks like a painting from a storybook. _ Made for summer_, Jaime thinks again. The late afternoon sun, the green of the grass, the fucking flowers.

The perfect place to propose, for a better man--one who didn’t ask the question like a child who’d been denied a toy too many times. Jaime _ meant _ to ask Brienne again, not to accuse her, but his words never come out right in moments like this, not unless he wants them to sting.

Brienne crosses her arms--a fortress, one that keeps him out, not in. “I don’t want to have this conversation.” There’s a silent _ right now _ or _ ever_, but Jaime isn’t sure which.

“No,” he sounds more churlish than ever. “We rely too much on how many things _ don’t _need said between us. It makes us not discuss the things that do.”

Jaime likes that they’re of one mind. Synchronized--attuned to one another in the way only years of closeness can foster. Like fighting side-by-side, Widow’s Wail in his left hand, Oathkeeper in her right; they don’t need to talk about that, either. 

The underside of it, though, is that they don’t talk when they _ need _to. 

“I’ve nothing to say about it,” Brienne sounds like she did in the Riverlands, years ago, dragging him by a chain. 

“Then listen,” Jaime replies, “because I do.”

“Fine.”

“I’m an old man.”

“You’re not old--”

“That’s what you said the first time I uttered that. _ Five years ago_. Maybe it wasn’t true, then, but it gets truer every day.” _ She’s so young; that’s why she doesn’t see it_. Jaime wants to go to her, but he holds his ground. “I never thought to live this long, but you’ve kept me alive, sometimes against my will.”

Brienne lets out a dry chuckle, “Someone has to know what’s best for you.”

If she knew that completely, or was honest with herself, Brienne would know that _ she’s _ what is best for him.

“I don’t want to waste the time I’ve been given, the time your protection and faith gave me.” Ten years? Twenty years? Maybe less--there’s so many stupid ways for a man to die, even a man with Jaime’s luck. “Today’s the longest day of the year, and I keep thinking _ there’s no time_.”

“There’s plenty of time,” Brienne answers, softly.

How many things in Jaime’s life had he said _ eventually _ about? Eventually, Cersei will come around, see what he sees. Eventually, his father will accept him. Eventually, Tommen might call him _ father_, will at least _ know_.

None, _ none _ of those things came to pass. All those _ somedays _ were lost to him.

“How can you say that, given all we’ve seen? The odds that we lived to stand here were so slim.” Jaime takes a few steps toward her, could reach her with his fingertips if he tried. “I was happy to die beside you, or _ for _ you, but whether by your will, or that of the gods, I’m still here.”

“Jaime--”

“Pod looked me in the eye, earlier, and told me my business, Brienne. He’s fucked more women this afternoon than I have _ in my life_,” Jaime’s voice increases in pitch until he’s near a crazed yelling that reminds him of Cersei. “I’m nearing the end of my fourth cursed decade. Before I’m buried in the ground and worms eat my corpse, I’d like to do something that I _ want _ to do.”

It’s _ summer_; he’s free--no oaths, no battles, just _ time_, finite and glorious, to spend how he chooses.

“I love you,” Brienne whispers, eyes closed, the breeze catching the fine strands of her hair.

“Then _ why_, Brienne? Give me your reason.”

“I...don’t want to be a substitute,” Brienne stares at the flowers at their feet. “I don’t want to be with you, knowing there’s another you long for. Winterfell was just _ circumstance_, a thing people do when death is close. I’ve been in soldier’s camps, amongst men, I _ know_.”

“Brienne, _ who _are you a substitute for?”

Jaime knows the answer but wants to hear her say it, wants to tell her how fucking _ wrong _ she got things. He _ never _ gets to prove Brienne wrong, and _ this _victory will be sweet.

“You sister,” Brienne looks up at him, blue-eyed and fierce, “I know you’d never choose me over her if she were a choice that could be made. I know why you followed me home.”

_ Because you have nowhere else to go_.

The laughter that springs from him is so tinged with desperation that Jaime struggles to breathe. Was Brienne obtuse, or was he so fucking bad at conveying his feelings that she took his actions that way? It’s like they’re speaking different tongues. She looks even angrier, now, hands balled into fists at her sides at his laughter.

“You could _ never _ be a substitute for Cersei,” Jaime takes one of her hands, tries to uncurl her fist, to get her to open up for him. “To be a substitute, you’d need to be alike, and there are no two more different people in the world.”

Brienne glares more, like she’s trying to reduce him to ash with her eyes.

“And I don’t mean beauty,” Jaime huffs, “You’re the only person like you. I’ve been chasing you since the day we met--even when I thought I hated you, I was in love with you.” 

Her glare melts to the warm expression Jaime likes best, like she finds him irritating but worth her time. When Brienne looks at him like that, he sees himself through her, and he’s better for it every time.

“There...should be a septon--it’s a good day for a wedding; I think there’s been two or three already.”

* * *

There’s been five weddings, actually, or so Evenfall’s septon tells them with a wry smile.

“I didn’t expect this one, though,” he says, “Lady Brienne refused so many as a girl.”

“All unworthy,” Jaime replies, “although, the same could be said about her final choice.”

Their audience is Lord Selwyn, and Podrick, and whatever gaggle of villagers kept cheering through the last five ceremonies. A girl, probably no older than seven summers, hands Brienne a crown of flowers that she, spitefully, puts on Jaime’s head.

“You’re the beauty,” she says, completely deadpan.

Podrick laughs, has to lean against a wall of rubble to catch his breath, might have tears running down his face. _ What an impudent little shit_. Jaime’s laughing, too, though.

The sun is lower, now, but there’s still time enough.

Jaime has no cloak to give her, but that doesn’t bother him. What would Brienne want with Lannister crimson and gold, when she has her island in the summer? What does Jaime need with his name anymore?

“We’ve no cloaks,” Brienne whispers; she sounds a bit panicked, like she’s suddenly become mired in tradition, like there’s precedence for two knights wedding.

“Who cares?” Jaime whispers back.

They’re whispering clearly _ isn’t _because Lord Selwyn coughs conspicuously and takes off his own. He falters, though, unclear of who to hand it to. 

“Brienne remains my heir,” he says to Jaime.

“I’ll be a good consort, demure and silent, have no worries,” Jaime answers, “Hand the cloak to her; I’d struggle to clasp it.”

Podrick’s laughter has reached such a state that he’s slumped on the ground.

It’s a shoddy wedding, truly--there’s no feast other than what the villagers planned to eat anyway, and Jaime and Brienne _ both _ stumble through their vows. At one point, Jaime speaks too early, over the septon, and blurts “_s__hit_." 

Podrick tries and fails to muffle his guffawing into his hand.

Brienne's smiling when she fastens the blue cloak around Jaime’s shoulders; he's been under her care for so long that the reverse in tradition feels right. She kisses him soundly as the daylight fades, and the sun slips closer to Shipbreaker Bay. The weird assortment of people clap, and this wedding is fucking _ perfect. _

There’s still enough light to see by when Brienne holds his hand and walks them back to the keep. The stained glass windows paint the room a rainbow, beautiful and transient. It’ll be dark soon, so he seeks to memorize Brienne illuminated by red, blue, and green. The sun will rise and set tomorrow, too, but there won’t be as much of it, and it won’t look exactly as this does.

Jaime touches her scarred cheek, painted blue from the light, and Brienne doesn’t flinch. The skin is rough under his fingers, but it's no worse than his bare wrist. Both are proof they're alive.

She reaches for him, unfastens the cloak and takes off the flower crown. He kisses her, walks her back to the bed. It's not a marriage bed, not meant for two, but they've shared tighter spaces. It's indulgent to Jaime, every time, to bunk closer to her than needed, to bask in her warmth. He'll never need to whine a flimsy excuse again.

They shed clothes. Brienne, when not shy, is all efficient movements. She tugs his boots off, works at the laces of his breeches. Their wandering hands stumble over each other. Jaime remembers her--the span of freckles on her collarbones, the scars from the bear, the other signs of her protecting him, protecting others. He knows what makes her sigh and shift under his touch. 

She knows him, too, remembers them learning each other in the cold and the dark, frantic and hurried.

They're not racing anything now, though--only the setting sun. The darkness that comes from it will end with the dawn. A normal summer night, so warm that the cracked pane of the window won't let in anything but an ocean breeze.

"Pod gave me some tips," Jaime whispers into Brienne's ear when he settles over her. "You might find my skills improved."

The rainbow is dimming, but Brienne's hair, fanned against the pillow, is still an emerald green.

"Why would you tell me that _ now_?"

"So you don't think I strayed," he teases.

Brienne rolls her eyes, "Don't mention Pod is this context _ ever _ again."

He's still laughing as Brienne kisses him, draws him into her and holds him close. Brienne, his _ wife_, finally, _ finally_. Jaime whispers things to her as they move together. Sometimes she answers, sometimes she kisses him again. 

By the time they're spent, the room is completely in shadow. Jaime doesn't want to part from her, and he never has to again.

"You were the only thing I missed about Winterfell," Jaime pulls her close, rests his head on her shoulder, remembers huddling for warmth under a mountain of furs.

"I've been with you since then," Brienne touches his hair.

"Not like _ this_."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be," and Jaime means it. He feels completely still, no ghosts or regrets chasing him, "We have time, right?"

The longest day has the shortest night, and Jaime will spend it, and the next, and the next, until the passing of all his days, _here_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jaime saying "shit!" in the middle of his wedding vows is autobiographical; It was very embarrassing.


End file.
